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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29777262">all the paints and pencils in the world could not replicate you.</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/vidimillion/pseuds/vidimillion'>vidimillion</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - College/University, Artist Nico di Angelo, Awkward Conversations, Comedy, First Meetings, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, Is it really? It's cute if you're already inclined to think of them as cute, Jason Grace is a Dork, M/M, Meet-Cute, Romantic Comedy, Tall Nico, Wingman Leo Valdez, Yes I need to put it as a tag, one (1) porn joke, one (1) uneducated reference to baseball, what a bro</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 01:49:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,009</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29777262</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/vidimillion/pseuds/vidimillion</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Law student Nico is forced into an extracurricular art class by his little sister Hazel. When his friend Leo offers to introduce him to the perfect figure drawing model, he wasn't expecting to find a muse.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Nico di Angelo &amp; Jason Grace, Nico di Angelo &amp; Leo Valdez, Nico di Angelo/Jason Grace</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>all the paints and pencils in the world could not replicate you.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Happy Valentine's Angel! This is for you ❤️❤️</p><p>I love your art so so much, and I get so happy when I see you in my notification box on Tumblr! (Back when I was posting on Tumblr whoops) I'm sorry I didn't get inspiration from what you asked for, but I hope you enjoy what I came up with :)</p><p>I was also busy with school and other things, so this is a little rushed and short, but part 2 will be longer. Please enjoy :D</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“For your finals in this class, I’m going to give you a long-term project. One anatomy drawing, every day— but they all have to be different, not a single pose the same. We require you to use real people as references, so you can ask a friend, a partner, or you can join us on Thursdays for figure drawing with models. You can use the same person a reference as many times as you'd like."</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Nico had tried every method he could think of to get a good reference.</p><p>First, finding pictures online was pretty quickly out of the question. Then he tried to use himself as a reference, but there wasn’t a mirror in his apartment big enough to see his full body. Even if there was, Nico doubted he could draw while trying to keep the rest of his body still. Then he tried taking a picture of himself, which hadn’t worked out either, because he was <em>way</em> too awkward to ask one of his friends to take a picture of him shirtless.</p><p>(And the only person he would be comfortable with was in another university and was probably too busy to help him out over a video call anyway.)</p><p>Reyna recommended he use a tripod, which he doesn’t have. Hazel recommended he use a stack of books, which he also doesn’t have because he doesn’t participate in literature consumerism and all his textbooks are PDFs. Dakota, a friend of Reyna’s who had overheard their phone call one day, recommended he balance it on his kitchen counter or something. Nico tried. The angle was a little too low.</p><p> (Yes, he’s now freed from the eternal hell of high school bullying. Yes, he can now make fun of Leo. But sometimes Nico curses getting a growth spurt in college.)</p><p>“You could always use a selfie stick,” Leo pipes up. Nico hadn’t exactly invited him over, but Leo heard Hazel’s voice from his phone as Nico was trying to get into his apartment, and decided that it was appropriate to invite himself in.</p><p>Nico doesn’t even pause, still hunched over his iPad as he chews on the protector of his Apple pen. “Do I look like the kind of guy who has a selfie stick? I don’t even keep a mirror in my bedroom.”</p><p>“You could always borrow mine.”</p><p>“Why am I not surprised you have a selfie stick,” he scoffs under his breath, but he doesn’t mean it. “I can’t hold it for as long as I need to. Even if I could I’d never be able to keep it still.”</p><p>“Why not use older pictures?” Hazel said from Nico’s phone. “Selfies? Group photos? Those pictures Percy took of you eating that you weren’t expecting?”</p><p>“Ha ha, thank you, very funny," he deadpans as she snickers at him.</p><p>Though she attended another university from him, Hazel was the one who’d pushed him to take <em>one</em> class that wasn’t for his law course. She’d pointed straight at the figure drawing class on the school’s website and said it’d be a good elective. Something about <em>taking advantage of that natural talent</em> or <em>doing something for fun instead of spending the whole semester doing homework.</em> Now she’s the one laughing at his misfortunes.</p><p>Fruitlessly trying to find another reference online, Nico’s hit with the thought that he didn’t even understand why he cared so much. If he wanted the grade so bad (And yes, he really does. Damn it.) then he could just wing the anatomy, draw things with his vague memories of what the human body looked like, then pass it off as something he used a reference for.</p><p>He glanced back down to his sketchpad, lying open on his kitchen island. His mouth curls as he looks at the inaccurate (And generally very shitty) half-finished sketches, and remembers, <em>yeah, that’s why.</em> He groans internally, and maybe it was his ADHD and or depression, but he didn’t have the motivation to be doing this right now.</p><p>He sighs as he puts his iPad and pen down, opting to gnaw the nail of his thumb instead as he gazes at his failed sketches. “I don’t even have anyone to draw,” he said, mostly to himself, though both Leo and Hazel could hear him.</p><p>Leo gestured to himself.</p><p>“Something makes me doubt you could sit still for as long as I need you to.”</p><p>“If you say so. But are you sure you can’t just ask one of your other friends?”</p><p>“First of all, bold of you to assume I have a lot of friends. Second of all, all my friends are busy, and even then not a lot of people are willing to sit still for at least two hours for a friend’s grade.”</p><p>It was nice of Leo to offer, because something about him made Nico think that if he <em>could</em> sit still for long enough, he would.</p><p>Nico never imagined the weird-looking kid Hazel brought home one day in high school would ever be more to him than <em>my sister’s very short-lived boyfriend.</em> And after he and Hazel broke up, which everyone was kind of expecting because they were good friends but didn’t work as a couple at all, Nico didn’t think he’d ever need to see the kid ever again. Which was a mutual opinion back then, as far as he knew. But since he stayed friends with Hazel, Leo had been a staple in Nico’s life ever since, despite the fact he didn’t really like the idea.</p><p>Then they’d realized they were accepted at the same college, and Leo yelled at him for getting taller than him, and it spiraled from there. Now that’s a whole other story, though one for another day.</p><p>Leo didn’t say anything for a few seconds as he took the time to think, before something came over his face and dashed away before Nico could see what it was. That wasn’t good news.</p><p>“So you want a model that’s patient, got a lot of free time on their hands, and is probably hot enough to tolerate staring at for a few hours? Because I think I know your guy.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>As the elevator doors slide open on Leo’s floor, Nico isn’t sure if he should really follow through with this. He had a hard enough time meeting new people already, but meeting someone new and then having to spend multiple hours a day with them sounded like a nightmare.</p><p>(”He’s really nice, I swear,” Leo insisted a few days ago, seeing the apprehension on Nico’s face. “He’s Percy-nice, and Annabeth-nice, combined with an individual kind of niceness, that makes him way nicer than both of them combined.”</p><p>“He’s patient, he’s a <em>pretty good example of human anatomy,</em> and he's approachable. He’s pretty much the perfect package.”</p><p>“You sound like you’re setting me up on a blind date,” Nico deadpanned.</p><p>“He has all the criteria of a guy you would actually like on a blind date. Plus you get to see him naked within the first few hours.”)</p><p>Nico had sighed and muttered his <em>’I don’t know’</em>s, and Leo batted all of it like he was playing a game of baseball. Even though Leo sucks at baseball but swears up and down he’d be a great left fielder. He insisted to just let him introduce them to each other, let them talk for a little while, then see if they would tolerate the arrangement. Eventually, Nico caved. Now he’s here, coming to meet Leo’s ‘connection’.</p><p>As Nico spots the door of Leo’s apartment, he doesn’t bother knocking, and sends Leo a quick text instead. Less than a second later the bubble appears on his screen, indicating that Leo’s already typing up a response.</p><p>
  <em>jus come in i left the 🚪 open 4 u</em>
</p><p>Nico barely reacts to Leo’s horrible texting manners, far beyond used to it. At least he didn’t use the ‘turn left’ emoji in place of typing the word out, if anything. He does as told, not bothering to keep quiet as his black Docs thumped lightly on the wooden floor.</p><p>Nico looks around, only vaguely familiar with the apartment as he’d only been inside twice. Both times he hadn’t even been able to see the whole place, or even meet Leo’s roommate. The apartment opened into a long hall with doorways on both sides, but Nico hesitantly goes for the doorway on the left of the door he came in from. From his vague knowledge, that was the living room.</p><p>
  <em>im not there rn, i had to do sth rq, so make sure 2 knock</em>
</p><p>Nico’s brows furrow as he reads the text Leo had just sent, rounding the corner into the living room— only to narrowly avoid being hit by a frying pan.</p><p><em>”Holy shit!”</em> Nico yelps loudly, ducking out of the way. “What the fuck?”</p><p>“What the fuck? Why are <em>you</em> asking 'what the fuck,’ I should be the one asking ‘what the fuck!’” Nico hears, gasped out of the other person in a startled voice.</p><p>“Fucking what? What are you—” Nico’s throat forces him to pause as he catches a clear glimpse of the guy who’d just tried to hit him. “…Jason Grace from calculus class?”</p><p>Jason pauses as quickly as Nico does, eyes wide as he stared at Nico in shock. He even almost dropped his pan, Nico catching it for him with deft hands. He didn’t even say anything as Nico awkwardly tried to give him the pan back.</p><p>“Uh… Leo said he’d be here?” Nico said, scrambling for something to say, be it an excuse or a justification for barging into a man’s house. Only then did Jason react.</p><p>“Leo, yeah, of course you’d be here for Leo,” Jason mumbled under his breath, before shaking his head slightly as he cleared his throat. “Leo actually isn’t here right now? He said he had to do something, but told me somebody would’ve been coming today— I just didn’t think it’d be, um, you.”</p><p>Nico is still a few seconds behind, holding his breath like Jason was gonna try and hit him again. “…You’re Leo’s roommate? The same roommate Leo said should be my model for my art class?”</p><p>Jason’s cheeks are pink, and Nico didn’t know if that happened just now or he only noticed now. Nico <em>did</em> just catch Jason in the middle of his own home, dressed down to just grey sweats and a shaggy hoodie, so Nico couldn’t blame him.</p><p>“Oh, is that what you’re here for?” Jason said, hiding the pan behind his back as he rubs the back of his neck. He chuckles nervously. “I guess I’m your guy.”</p><p>“Fuck, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have barged in like that, Leo said I should just come in— shit, I should leave, I’m sorry.”</p><p>“Oh, no, you don’t need to!” Jason says, gesturing his free hand like he was trying to stop him. “It wasn’t your fault, I probably shouldn’t have tried to hit you. Leo was the one who was going to introduce us properly, it’s my fault for not listening to him when he said you might come early today.”</p><p>He grimaced at Nico, sighing as he was probably trying to lighten the situation. “Maybe it was Leo’s idea of a practical joke.”</p><p>“Should re-evaluate the line between a joke and a bodily danger. If he really made you think I was breaking in, you could’ve killed me,” Nico comments, beginning to note Jason’s physical features— Nico would say he could normally hold his own in a fight, but Jason Grace looked like a guy who could wipe him out in an instant.</p><p>Even through the ragged hoodie, the fabric was thin enough to show him the vague idea of Jason’s torso, broad-shouldered and fit. His clothes weren’t forgiving of much else, but Nico assumed it wouldn’t be too difficult to draw him. He already looked similar enough to the reference pictures and models his drawing professor normally gave.</p><p>Under Nico’s scrutiny, he noticed Jason begin to fidget. As Nico looked back at Jason’s face, he sees his cheeks lightly flushed and his eyes avoiding his direction. Nico feels the embarrassment bloom in his chest, ashamed to be acting so casual in the living room of a guy who’s house he just broke into. He probably made him feel so embarrassed. Jason would never agree to be his model now.</p><p>He deflated at the thought. “You probably wouldn’t let me draw you now, huh? You seem really nice and all, but I know when I should leave. I’m sorry for intruding again.”</p><p>“Wait, no,” Jason said awkwardly as Nico tried to turn to leave. “I’d, uh, love to let you draw me. I’ll stay still for as long as you need me to, but I have ADHD, so you probably have to talk to me to make sure I can focus. But I’d do my best if you want me to.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>If Nico had thought Jason was fit with the ill-fitting hoodie on, he had no idea what he was getting himself into once he actually started drawing him.</p><p>Jason’s body looked like an artist’s dream. His abs were so defined that when Nico tried to shade them they looked comical, like they’d just come out of the deepest pits of the minds of Twitter’s porn artists. His thick thighs have clearly never missed leg day, and they might as well go on for miles. Nico is sure that classic sculptors would’ve lined up to use Jason as a reference if they were sculpting fucking Zeus.</p><p>And Jason is so… perfect, when it comes to Nico actually drawing him. He’d always had a love-hate relationship with details, even before he signed up for his drawing class, back when he drew because he had nothing better to do. Nico had never been able to get the finer points in his art right, something looking inaccurate or something looking too much like squiggly lines; but Jason was more graceful than his large stature gave him credit for. It only took Nico a few weeks to realize that whenever something was off in the details, Jason could move in the slightest, most careful ways to make it easier for Nico to see and draw, and no other part of his position would change.</p><p>Jason was graceful, careful, the definition of precision— and it might seem a little hyperbolic, but he was. It wasn’t even a matter of opinion, it was objective.</p><p>One day, Jason had noticed Nico’s brows furrow as he was drawing his abdomen, and adjusted himself the slightest inch to define his serratus anterior without moving a centimeter of the rest of his body.</p><p>“You’re incredible,” Nico had said then, in a spell of spontaneity that made his words as real as his smile. Nico had only mentioned it was one of his favorite parts to draw <em>once</em> and since then Jason’s never allowed it to escape Nico’s sketches.</p><p>Something told him that he shouldn’t have said that. That it was too much. When Nico loses grip on his control, and does or says something spontaneous like that, it’s always too much. But Nico didn’t see Jason’s face contort unpleasantly. Instead, he saw Jason’s cheeks pink, heard his laugh ring through Nico’s apartment, and Nico understood what some people mean when they say certain people’s laughs sound like bells.</p><p>Jason wasn’t lying when he said Nico would probably need to talk to him so he wouldn’t start fidgeting. And small talk wouldn’t work either, Nico had discovered, quickly realizing that it took up too little of Jason’s mind, took too much time to think of the right words. Nico had soon learned all of Jason’s thoughts on not only Julie and the Phantoms, but also all the reasons season eight of Voltron was terrible before he even learned his favorite color.</p><p>(”Sheith would’ve been the best-case scenario, obviously, but at that point, I was so desperate, I would’ve been okay with it if they just did Klance. And they didn’t even do that.”)</p><p>(Jason’s favourite color was blue, by the way, which he had learned during a more idle conversation during an instant ramen break last week).</p><p>Some days, like today, Jason would like to hear Nico’s side of the conversation instead of taking up all the space by himself; so Nico tells him a funny story about their mutual friend Percy, who Nico had known since he was a little kid and thus had a lot of dirt on. Nico tells him more stories than he even knew he had.</p><p>Nico tells him about how his first roommate experience ended up so bad that his father insisted on paying for half of Nico’s rent so he could live alone, including a passing comment that he sometimes thinks it’s a little lonely.</p><p>(”He didn’t pay my rent at first because I didn’t want him to, but he didn’t let me have a say when he found out my third roommate was a hoarder.”</p><p> “Seems pretty tame compared to other stories I’ve heard.”</p><p>“True, but my dad was a boarding school kid.” </p><p>“Hah, mine too!”)</p><p>Nico was surprised to even find himself considering telling Jason about Will, his roommate who ended up being his first and last ex-boyfriend. He told him about the first and third but skips the second, and Nico is grateful that if Jason noticed (Which he probably did), he didn’t say anything.</p><p>Jason tells him about how he met Leo, and every story he tells has a girl called Piper whose name makes Jason stutter when he says it. Nico didn’t ask why.</p><p>Nico’s in the middle of shading Jason’s collar when he said something that was apparently a little <em>too</em> funny, because Jason bursts out laughing. Nick rolls his eyes, pretending he was annoyed. But Nico can’t bring himself to be upset though, because now he’s thinking about the rise and fall of Jason’s chest as he laughs and how he thinks he’d like to draw it.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>fun fact: this is the first time i drafted something before posting it.</p><p>If you have any comments, don't be afraid to share! I love comments, and if they're criticisms, I love them too!!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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